Let me introduce you to my good buddy here Winston. That’s right man’s best friend.
And of course he’s a miniature labrador. Well he’s mostly Chihuahua mix. But he loves
to chase birds and balls. He also loves to lay on all kinds of soft and cozy items like
laying in the sun here in his awesome new dog bed. Check this out, Shannon Fabrics came
up with this rough, rough cuddle. And when I saw it, I thought Winston It’s time to
upgrade. You ready to get started today.
I’m showing you how to make this dog bed. And we’re going to do it in basically two
major parts, right? We’re going to do a base, both sides. And we’re also going to
make this awesome wall. And I’m going to show you how to use a companion fabric also.
This is all of the cuddle fabric from Shannon. And if you haven’t worked with this stuff
before it is incredibly soft and snuggly. One or two little parts and cautions to give
you. When you are cutting it, it may shift a little bit. That’s ok because when you
sew it it also shifts a little bit which makes it very, very easy to construct. My biggest
thing is when I am cutting this stuff down it makes a bunch of fuzz and lint because
of the nap in the fabric. So I keep a shop vac very handy and after I cut, I vacuum before
I move anything. Helps me keep my studio much more tidy, right? Now for you, 27 inches also
known as ¾ of a yard will do all of the dog bed for basically our little ten pound buddies,
right? Also I’ve used a ¼ yard of the complimentary fabric. If you wanted to do it all out of
one piece of course just get yourself a yard, you’ll have plenty. And as often we do here
at Man Sewing, down in the description below, that’s right, we’ve got a printable for
you today. And the printable is going to show you how I’ve cut out our pieces to maximize
our 60 inch goods. The Shannon cuddle is 60 inch wide. And also to teach you how to figure
your perimeter in case you’re making a bed that is bigger than what I’m making. That
way you know the philosophy and how I am doing this, right? So with that said, I’m going
to set my coordinating fabric aside and walk you through the pieces that are out on the
table.
You can tell I’m very excited about this project today. The first cut I made, because
this was 60 inches wide this way, is I went ahead and cut off seven inches by 60 inches.
And that’s going to be one of the major parts that forms the wall of the bed, right?
And I’m going to need that in a minute so I’m just going to set it aside for a second.
With the remaining 20 inches by 60 inches you’re going to be able to get the top of
the bed and the bottom of the bed. Those are cut for me at 15 by 20. Then I’m also going
to need a little bit of this 27 inch piece. This is going to extend the wall long enough
to go all the way around the perimeter. Give me a couple of extra inches for those corners.
And then the way I’m going to show you how to overlap it here in just a second. And then
you’re also going to have a bit of extra fabric in case you want to make your walls
a little bit bigger to make the bed a little bit bigger. Or to increase the size of your
rectangles. And that’s way more information than you need. Let’s show you how to get
this all stitched together.
First step for the stitching together today is to create the walls first. And as I said
earlier, I used two different fabrics because I love the way that that zig zag or that chevron
also work together with the rough, rough cuddle. So these two pieces you’ll also have made
out of your coordinate. Again the 60 by seven inches and the 20 by seven inch. Now when
you’re joining the cuddle, it has a bit of nap. So what I do is I just pet the fabric
to make sure that all of the fiber or all of the nap is heading in the same direction.
So I’m just going to go ahead and fold this over. Most of this is going to be about a
⅜ inch seam allowance or a ¼ inch seam allowance. I’ll tell you what, this is very
good and strong fibers. So you can sew pretty close to the edges. And you’re going to
want to do that when you’re joining in the seams into the bottom here in just a second.
So I’m going to join my short and long pieces for the wall. Oh my new sewing machine has
got a built in caffeinated mode which I absolutely love as well.
And here comes the joining of the coordinating fabrics as well. You can see I seamed them
together just like I did these pieces. And just a quick reminder, these are for the wall
so these are the same pieces, a six, excuse me, a seven by 60 and a 20 by seven. And what
these are going to do is these are going to lay together like this, right sides together.
And I’m just going to sew down both sides. I am not going to sew the openings closed
yet. Let me show you how that works out. I’ve got one already made up for us, ok? So you
can see here the tube has been joined. You can see the seams on both sides, right? And
then all you have to do, you don’t even need the cool tube turning trick from Man
Sewing. This stuff is so easy and soft and cozy to put your hand inside. So go ahead
and grab it and start turning this. We’re going to need our wall set to the right sides
out for the rest of our construction. And I’m going to teach you how to put this onto
the base real quick. But I need to get it all ready here. A little shake out. I bet
all of you have some fantastic pets at home. I find that most quilting and sewing and crafters
have a big affection especially for cats. And I don’t know if it’s that cats adopt
us or we adopt the cats but it seems like especially quilters all love cats. I’ve
got cats, dogs, and reptiles as some of you have seen.
Back to the tutorial at hand.We have our wall turned right sides out. Now we’re going
to simply join this to one of those 15 by 20 rectangles, ok? We are going to kind of
treat this like we are building a pillowcase, meaning that I’m going to set it. And I
want actually to have my coordinating piece on the outside. So I’m going to stitch it
with my coordinating piece facing up like this, ok? I’m going to start about four
inches in from the beginning of my wall. I’m going to stitch all the way around with the
right sides together. And you can trim your corners if you feel it’s necessary but we’re
going to secure those down. And when I come all the way back around like this with that
sewing machine. I want you to check this out real quick, too. While you’re preparing
this you do have a nice thick seam that we’ve created when we joined the, the wall pieces.
Let’s try not to get that set up in the corner, right? So if I need to cheat this
back just a little ways from the corner here then I’m just going to come down here and
start in a little different location. I don’t want to try to corner around that thick seam.
So I can just adjust this. When you’re stitching with the Shannon using a few pins, I should
call it the cuddle fabric. There’s lots of cool cuddle fabrics out there. You want
to go ahead and possibly pin as you go along, ok? And let me show you the way this turns
out before I fumble this around and make you all seasick as you’re watching, right? Because
I really want to show you how to join the ends. The reason we’re going to join the
ends kind of differently is we need to be able to stuff the walls and the bed individually
just like you’re blowing up a raft, right? So you blow up the pillow and you blow up
the parts of the body of the raft. So here you can see I have stitched around almost
all the way but I’ve given myself some working space, right? Then what I want to show you,
let’s flip it over like this, is that I still have a little bit of extra overlap in
my actual wall. What we’re going to do now is we’re going to figure out how much we
need. So I’m going to pull this nice and taut and I’m going to bring this over. And
remember we’re using roughly ⅜ maybe a ¼ inch seam allowance. So I’ve got a little
more fabric than I need here. So I’m just going to grab myself a nice pair of scissors
or you could use your rotary cutter. I am going to trim off about a ¼ of an inch. Again
the beauty of working with this fabric is there is a little bit of wiggle room and flexibility.
Now what I’m going to do is I’m going to grab the inner wall pieces. Right now I’m
using that red, the part with the dogs on it. And I’m going to join them at the seams
here right sides together.
We’re going over to the sewing machine. And I’m actually going to stitch about 80%
of this tube closed. So I’m actually starting past the red onto the zig zag . And we’re
going to take this nice and slow. And the reason I’m only going about 80% around my
tube here is I want to make sure that I have a place to stuff it. Ready, here we go. Now
as I’m sewing this all together, I’m using my hands on the underside to make sure I’m
only stitching the two layers together that I want. It’s a little bit of tight sewing
in here. Just take it nice and slow. Coming around. And I’ll show you the opening here
in just a second, let me get it finished off for us. This will be handstitched so you want
to have an opening large enough to stuff and small enough to not spend all weekend sewing
it closed. That looks good there. Now as I come out of the machine, what I want to show
you here is that I have now stitched the wall closed. But I have enough of an opening here
on the zig zag side right to go ahead and get the stuffing in there. And once that’s
happened I still am going to come in here back to the machine now with the right sides
together . And I need to finish that space where I joined the wall to the bottom of the
dog bed. Here we go. And I guess I shouldn’t be so selfish, of course cat’s need beds
as well but my dog was really ready for that upgrade, I’m telling you what. And the nice
thing about my dog bed I found is I put in twice the amount of stuffing that you would
find in the standard dog beds from the grocery story and what at the pet story. So he really
likes it. Ok. The wall has been finished off. And so all of that seam allowance is now stitched
closed there, right? So we are ready to actually do some of the final construction of putting
the now it would be the top into the dog bed. So this would be right sides together also.
Now watch what I’m doing here. I’m taking a moment to fold in the corners. And this
would not be a terrible time to take a straight pin or if you’re concerned about getting
poked, we might want to take a safety pin. I want to get all of the bulk away from these
edges that I’ll be stitching around, right? And then we’re going to ahead, oh that’s
a small little pin. I got a half size pin out of my pin, my pin cushion over there.
It must have been a discount. Then what I need is one more of these top pieces here
that I’ve got, ok? And this is going to be the piece that was the leftover. This was
too big. I’ll be right back with the smaller piece. It’s just hidden down here. See told
you that wouldn’t take long. This is the piece we’re after. Now this is going to
go ahead and lay on here as I said, right sides together. And just a reminder we’re
going to leave a nice opening so we can pull all of the meat of the bed back out through
there. One of the things I find, especially on the little bit smaller machines at home,
is it’s easiest if I’m sewing kind of from the top so I can see all of the meat
so I can see what’s going on with the seam allowances trying to pull away. The other
thing I like to do is I like to make sure the opening for where we’re stuffing the
walls is on the same side of the bed as the opening where we’re going to stuff the bottom.
So I can hand sew it and hide that in a back corner or something like that all at once.
So here we go. I’m going to start stitching. And if you’re using a smaller machine, well
any machine, let’s go ahead and backstitch. And then if I’m using a little bit smaller
sewing machine, I just want to make sure I don’t have that feel where I feel that I
need to push into the machine. Now this is the new Baby Lock Jane that I love so much.
And this thing has got some nice horsepower and some nice feed to it. And I’m organizing
my corner right now. So as I go through I’m not having much of a struggle at all with
this machine. But some of you may at home. So you just want to, you want to fight that
tendency to push that will sometimes break needles and whatnot. Cornering is nice and
easy here. Get this going right out of the corner there. And again just kind of sewing
right on that seam allowance I used to join the wall to the bottom layer of the bed. Once
you get the feel for sewing on the cuddle it works really great. I’ll tell you though
the first time I was doing it, I was actually doing a glued project as well. So I was cutting
this stuff and glueing it at the same time. Talk about being tarred and feathered. The
fiber that comes off from the wonderful texture that’s created by this cuddle sure sticks
to the glue. My scissors were coated. Everything, it was hilarious.
Oh this is turning out fantastic. Here we go. Got almost done. And I’m going to stop
with a few inches to spare. Of course backstitch again. We want to lock that in because we’re
going to be putting a little bit of force on the stuff. Now I’ve got the opening in
the bed right here. Just barely enough that I can get my hand inside. So I’m going to
start and don’t, what am I trying to say. Be careful. You don’t want those pins in
there. So when you start to pop that through, this is why we’ve backstitched those corners
so I can get a little forceful with this. And once I get ahold of it I can start pulling.
And as I said, be careful we’ve got those pins in there now. Kind of pushing and pulling.
And then you probably want to go out and get a dump truck full of polyfil stuffing because
that’s our next step. We’re going to stuff this bad boy. And I literally, I think I used
two of the 24 ounce bags. And I stuff my walls first. And then I stuffed the base. Once the
base and the walls were stuffed I went ahead and stitched everything closed by hand. But
let me show you how this is all finished up now, ok? So here we are looking at the base
stitched together. You’ve got your wonderful coordinating walls. Here’s that opening
here so you have stuff like your polyfil stuffing, right?
One of the tricks you can do when you are stuffing, if you just take this like this
and you just wad it in here, it could be a little bit lumpy. So what a lot of us like
to do is we’ll take our stuffing actually and you want to kind of pull it apart. Now
if you have small kids around the house this is the perfect job for them to do. So you
want to fluff it before you stuff it. And then you take that and you’re going to go
ahead and take that to pack it in here. Now one of the reasons I left the opening as wide
as I did, and I found this to actually be necessary, is I was able to feed the stuffing
all the way around to about the halfway point because you need to get it nicely stuffed
and evenly stuffed all the way around the outside walls. So if your arms aren’t that
long you could also use a yardstick or something to poke in there. But you’re literally just
going to stuff something. And as you’re stuffing these walls, and the reason we stuff
the walls first is that it makes the bottom of the bed more pliable or it’s easier to
get to. So I can actually take lots and lots of my stuffing and kind of lightly fluff it
like I was showing you. And then I can work it back. You don’t have to push every handful
to the back corner actually. What you can do is work it in big sections. So pre-fluff
a little. Back into the wall. And then you can see that that’s a pretty good size pile
of stuffing. And then from that point we can stick our hands back in and we can to manipulate
through and use this outside hand to pull as you can see the tube, right? And as you
can see you keep pushing and pushing the stuffing until you get it nice and firm. Let me show
you here on this bed. It gets nice and firm because the walls actually build the structure
of the bed and keep everything from sagging in. And it makes it look nice and tidy in
your home. That’s why we’re choosing this super cool fabric to use. So it looks great
and our pets love it of course.
Once the entire wall system is stuffed, that’s when you’re going to come back to the outer
wall. And I kind of pull on my seams a little bit. I hope you can see this ok. And I’m
going to whip stitch this closed by hand. And once that’s completely finished then
I’m going to come and stuff the bottom of the bed, right? That’s where I’m going
to find that same opening that I left. Here it is. And I’ll be able to go ahead and
push the fiber in much more easily especially because the walls are all in place. And it
shows you what you still need to fill. Once the bottom is all stuffed then you can go
ahead and do the same thing and pinch it. And that’s why it’s on the bottom of the
bed. And you’ll whip stitch that closed with a hand needle as well. I don’t think
I mentioned earlier but of course polyester thread is nice. And all of this is totally
washable because I used the polyester polyfil and the Shannon cuddle is a very washable
fabric as well.
And as you can see the bottom of the bed. This is an awfully lot more stuffing than
you’re going to find in those standard commercially made beds. Hey my dog is man’s best friend
right? Or especially Man Sewing’s best friend and so I wanted to treat him right. And so
I over double stuffed this for him so he would be super soft and cozy. And of course as I
said earlier I know most of us are huge pet fans so do me a favor this week and all those
wonderful comments you send in, I want to see pictures of you and your pets and the
awesome new dog or cat bed you just made for them. And we’ll check you out here next
time at Man Sewing.